Thanksgiving 2012

What a great Thanksgiving week! This was an interesting Thanksgiving to say the least. This year Lori and Rudy decided to have a Thanksgiving breakfast since everyone had other plans for dinner. Our plans were to head up with Rudy and Lori to their cabin in Lava Hot Springs for the weekend. However, Lori had a major disaster happen when her flowers froze for a huge wedding the next day. After breakfast we headed to the cabin with Rudy, and Lori stayed behind to deal the the flower catastrophe. We got to the cabin around dinner time and the kids were hungry. I tried to come up with something that we could throw together that was halfway decent. After all, it was Thanksgiving. Rudy grabbed two boxes of Macaroni and Cheese out of the cupboard, and assured me that we would be just fine to eat that for dinner. He was right. We didn't need anything fancy to eat.

Hailey commented that she was sad we weren't having a Thanksgiving dinner, but she quickly got over it when Poppy had her sit up on the counter to help him make the mac and cheese. It was fun watching them. He let her read him the directions, and had her guide him through what he needed to do. When we sat down to eat Rudy taught Hailey to pour barbeque sauce on her mac and cheese. She thought he was crazy at first, but she really ended up liking it. I think that's a fun memory Haily will always have of her grandpa.

Lori was able to come up Friday to spend the rest of the time with us. Hailey cuddled up with her grandpa the whole time, and spent every second by his side. Hayden spent most of his time shooting the nerf guns that were up there, and Katelyn spent all of her time mauling the dog. The whole weekend we pretty much did nothing but relax and play with the kids. It was great! I made the comment to Lori that it's nice to not be home because when I'm home I always feel like I need to be doing something. At the cabin I leave all of my worries behind, and focus on spending time with the ones I love.

On our way home we stopped at my Grandma Joyce's in Farr West to have a Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's side of the family. It was a nice halfway stop so the drive didn't seem so long, and you can imagine how excited Hailey was to finally get her Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice to see a lot of my family and cousins that I haven't seen for so long. However, the time spent there was short lived. The kids were all running around like a bunch of crazies, and at one point Hayden stabbed Katelyn in the neck with a fork (he didn't break the skin fortunately). I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone without getting interrupted by the sound of one of my children screaming.

Tonight we got all of our Christmas decorations out, and set up the Christmas tree. I let the kids go crazy on decorating it, which is where I have to let my anxiety of having perfection go right out the door. I remember my parents never let us decorate the tree. I understand why too. They wanted the tree to look perfect, but as a kid I always wanted to help so bad. I want my kids to have the experience and memories of helping decorate for Christmas. Who cares if 90% of the ornaments are at the bottom of the tree, right? I did my fair share of rearranging when the kids weren't looking, but mostly I left the ornaments where they put them. We had a really fun time, and even brought the holiday spirit in by singing Christmas carols. I love my family. :)

I took this because this is a rare scene. Hayden and Katie playing nicely together :)

This is a picture I took earlier in the week when I had Skylie all dressed up. My 3 month old little girl.